It's Complicated - Reflections on my Sri Lankan Safari

Across the plain, a baby elephant clambered up onto a teenage elephant with surprising speed and flexibility, albeit clumsiness. First, she ascended his front side; tree-trunk legs splayed over his chest and neck. He flicked his head, and she slid off backward. Undeterred, she clambered up his back, her trunk playfully whirling in the air and knocking him on the head. Enough was enough. He got up and walked toward a larger female, but behind him jogged his little grey shadow, pulling his tail and trying to snatch his ears. He attempted to kick his back legs out at her and knock her over, but it wasn’t enough to deter her. This little sister was going to have her fun.

Watching elephants on safari is an experience I’ve hoped to tick off my bucket list since I was a child. Now, at 32, I've been traveling with my husband for a year engaging in all kinds of ecotourism – from multi-day shipping ferry passages through Chilean fjords to biking through salt farms and bird reserves on an island off the Atlantic Coast of France. We've seen condors and kestrels, dolphins and whales, and dozens of plant species. We've trekked on glaciers, visited coffee and tea plantations, napped in meadows and clung to the sheer granite faces of the Swiss Alps. We've done all this in sunshine, hailstorms, thick fogs, and through winds so fierce you can't keep your hat on to save your life. Most of our megafauna interactions, however, were happenstance; we were in the right place at the right time. Our safari to see elephants (as well as numerous bird species, toque macaques and silver langurs, and a solo crocodile) was the first ecotourism experience we booked through an operator and our hopes were high that despite the questionable ethics of safaris were on our minds.

My husband and I attempted to do our research before booking our tour. There is a plethora of information online, but we depend heavily on local, on-the-ground knowledge. After three days bargaining with tuk-tuk drivers, eating searingly hot spiced cuisine at joints where hygiene is of no great concern, and navigating our way past Asian water monitors on evening strolls, we decided to indulge in some creature comforts. July, though the beginning of safari season, is off-season for Sri Lankan tourism, since the well-known beaches are swept by monsoons. This provided the opportunity to book a super sale at a luxury hotel in Habarana, a small town near the national parks known for large elephant populations. The hotel website advertised it worked with a sustainable tourism group that even had a specialty research project focused on collecting elephant migration data to mitigate the elephant-human conflict. All of this painted a hopeful picture for a safari experience that would be both authentic and harmless to the elephants.

If you’ve got some moxie, negotiating your safari in a small town like Habarana can be temptingly cheap. For the cost of take-out, you and your loved one can walk down the road and hop into any number of jeeps that will take you on safari. I naively thought that were my husband and I to engage in a business transaction with these guides, we would be chasing down elephants, disturbing their activities, and entering territory we oughtn’t. After a conversation with the guide selling sustainable tours in our hotel, we turned over seventy dollars per person, hoping we had made the right decision.

Our guide, Sal, the seventeen-year-old son of the company owner, was a pleasure to spend time with and highly knowledgeable. On our drive from the hotel to the park, he explained how he grew up learning from his father, who studied conservation biology in the US. In December, he will be going off to the States to major in conservation studies at college. I asked him what kind of work he does other than lead trails and learned his project tracking a collared female elephant. His goal is to determine more about her herd's movements in response to climatic and human activity, which really excited me. He cared a lot about wildlife corridors and was hopeful that this information might help to justify protecting areas so that the elephants could move about greater territories. Their movements expand beyond the park – we passed plenty of elephant dung in the roads, demonstrating their movement across human territory. However, as Sri Lanka's population grows, more conflicts due to shrinking habitat and road traffic are expected.

When we arrived at the park entrance, other jeeps idled in the front lot. I couldn't tell quite how many were there; at first, it seemed like ten, but when we took the top off our jeep it felt like dozens. Most of the vehicles, which had seats enough for eight people, only had couples in them. Only a few more densely packed jeeps contained families. Surely we weren’t all going into the park at the same time? Maybe these onlookers had just finished, and were waiting? We arrived after these jeeps and departed first. Within moments we were alone, slowly rolling over rutted jeep tracks in the jungle. 

Our first sighting was a pack of toque macaques launching through the canopy away from a tree full of silver langurs, two enchantingly different species of monkey. At our hotel, toque macaques ran freely, thieving sugar packets from the restaurant and carrying their beady-eyed babies around under them as they ran. Our room had a sign on the dresser reading "Beware of MONKEYS roaming about in wanton abandon," encouraging us to keep our windows closed lest we see our valuables plundered. These monkeys are also known for raiding human crops; perhaps a fair trade considering they are losing habitat to the expansion of agriculture.[i] The adjustment of animal behavior in response to human encroachment is a reality in all parts of the world. Seeing them here, eating a healthy diet of palm fruit and insects, was a reminder of the importance of conservation and the protection of their homes.

Suddenly, a crashing sound came from in front of us, and I gasped like a lousy movie actress. I saw dark leathery ripples – a flank and tail – tottering along much faster than I imagined on the road ahead of us, first heading right, then left, then gone. A large male! Male elephants, we learned, travel apart from the herd once they reach maturity at around twenty years old. We returned to birdwatching as the jeep crept along, kicking up dust, only reversing once to reclaim Sal’s hat that was snatched by an overhanging tree branch.

Suddenly, the thick vegetation opened up, and there we were – in a vast wetland with four elephant herds scattered across a broad grassy plain surrounding a flat, rippling lake. Elephants walked about, tearing up grass by the roots and shaking the dirt off, and stuffing it into their mouths. They were playing in the water, in the mud, and lolling about in the heat. It was completely stunning. We stayed on the dusty path ahead of us, over sixty elephants merely a hundred yards away. I asked at least a dozen questions, learning about elephant genetics, reproduction, nutrition, markings, behavior – and I also sat silently agape, watching for minutes on end in silence, marveling. We snapped photos and videos of them socializing. It was just like people-watching; all range of emotions and interactions on display, including the teasing and exasperation between the baby and teen elephant. Another jeep was far off in the distance, and after awhile we pulled up next to them. The two drivers chatted briefly in Sinhalese, and Sal revealed they were discussing another grouping of herds of elephants on the other side of the park. Two more jeeps appeared, more words exchanged. We left these herds behind, in search of more.

We didn’t drive long before stopping again – there were two small herds just up around the bend near another corner of the amoeba-shaped lake. Here we even caught a glimpse of a large "tusker," a male that carries the gene for having large tusks. Some males don't have tusks, while some have short stubs. This one had long, thick ivory tusks that stretched down along his trunk. From where we were, they appeared almost three feet long, glinting in the sunlight.

Now we were with seven cars. News had spread. Across the field, one female elephant began to charge a jeep until it backed up sufficiently. I asked Sal whether he thought the noise, the number of automobiles, the people, or even the jeep's color had provoked her.

“Her name is a Sinhalese word that means ‘Torn Ear’. See? Her left ear is shredded on the end. I don’t know how it got that way. She is known to charge at specific jeeps – she knows which ones she doesn’t like.” Elephants have an excellent long-term memory – they can recognize subtle differences in the markings on the vehicle just as well as they can identify the driver.

Looking at the jeeps, I was curious about how the territory of the elephants was changing. Clearly development was a huge factor, but I also began to wonder about the greater forces on Sri Lanka’s climate. I asked him, “What ways do you think climate change are affecting the elephant habitat here? Do Sri Lankans care or talk about climate change?”

“Well yeah, we know climate change is a problem, but it is hard to say what is really happening. I don’t think Sri Lankans really know what to do yet about it and I don’t think they are really thinking about the elephants when they think about climate change. Sri Lanka is really small, so things will change really fast.” Climate change is definitely affecting the island - its mean ambient temperatures are increasing island-wide, and it has been subjected to harder rains and sea-level rise.[ii] Sal spoke again hopefully about his project proposing wildlife corridors – it would be an important step in addressing climate change and development.

If you look at a map of the Asian Elephant’s habitat, it looks like an archipelago set within the island of Sri Lanka. The dots across the map, not surprisingly, correlate with their major national parks, however, 65% of their range extends outside their protected areas.[iii] These creatures used to have a full range of the island, only avoiding the areas most prone to monsoon flooding. According to the World Wildlife Fund, habitat loss is the top threat to species.[iv]

After more photos, more time spent admiring, jaws-agape, Sal informed us that up ahead was an observatory tower that we could get out and climb to view the elephants from above. As we drove, we could see a large number of elephants in the distance. Once we were closer, we could see it was jeeps, not elephants, we saw on the horizon. There we found all the jeeps I saw in the parking lot and more. Some were crowding close to a small herd, and many had parked near the observatory tower. The sound of engine rumbles and people Facetiming the experience with friends back home overpowered the peaceful sounds of the elephants and birds around us. Some were getting out of their cars at the tower and walking to the grassland to take selfies with elephants behind. A large sign near the tower read “DO NOT APPROACH WILD ANIMALS,” with a drawing of a jeep near two elephants, and the international sign for prohibited, a red circle with a slash, drawn on top.

“Is there a limit to the number of jeeps allowed in the park?” I asked Sal.

“No, and this really isn’t a lot of jeeps for the park. On Saturdays, locals come in, and during high season, there can be even more.” Sal’s attitude was one of resign. There were enough jeeps in one spot that elephants were having trouble crossing the road. When the line of jeeps would break, one or two would scamper through, tourists squealing in delight. The herd was divided by the jeep line, which seemed to create a low level of anxiety. Thankfully, it was about the time safaris ended in the park, and we, along with many other groups, all made separate ways out to the exit.

On the drive back, after having had the reality of the safari experience wash over me, I recalled seeing signs for "Elephant Orphanages" along the road from Colombo to Kandy.

“Are the elephant orphanages I’ve seen around here real? Sometimes I’ve heard you places like that steal a baby from the herd and then raise it in the orphanage.” I asked Sal like a hopeful child.

“Yes, there are some that are real, where they help injured elephants. But some capture the babies and shoot the mother. Otherwise she will go looking for it.” He responded. He stated it in a matter of fact, yet disappointed tone that suggested he wasn’t pleased but didn’t see a way of stopping it. Elephants don't reach sexual maturation until twenty, and when they do, they have one child at a time, which takes two years to gestate. Most elephants have only four to six children in a lifetime. As a result, they are particularly sensitive to endangerment. The theft of one baby and murder of one mother has a huge impact on subsequent elephant generations.

The next day, as we sped past the park in a tuk-tuk heading toward the ancient kingdom at Sigiriya for a hike, we passed a truck containing two elephants in thick iron chains, standing back to back. Later, our driver for the day asked us if we wanted to ride an elephant. Had we seen this activity sooner, we may have brought greater skepticism to our safari experience. Elephants are a critical tourism driver in this area, and so it should not have been surprising that they would suffer such exploitation.  Tourism is a top industry in Sri Lanka, which has nearly fifty percent of its labor force engaged in service industries.[v]

The Sri Lankan government recently ordered an elephant census, which on its surface, appears to be innocuous. It is essential to have accurate and current data to increase protection efforts. Unfortunately, however, the conservation groups that agreed to perform the census uncovered information that the government had an interest in collecting young healthy elephants for uses in temples and tourism, and so they protested. The government still intends to perform the census.[vi]

So, I keep wondering – can a safari, or animal ecotourism experience, ever honestly be responsible? I had imagined an experience where I would see the elephants far off, but that they wouldn't see me. Was I taking for granted that this type of animal-human dynamic would be possible? I hadn’t googled “Minneriya Elephant Safari" before going so as not to spoil the experience, but now I have, and many images show a park flooded with jeeps strikingly close to the herds.

I was nearly in tears seeing their beauty and the care the elephants demonstrated for one another. I wanted to see limits on the number of tour groups, restrictions on their movements, and speed limits at the least. This presents conflicts – I don’t want Sri Lankans whose lives depended on ecotourism income to become jobless. I also don’t want to restrict locals from coming to appreciate their “national treasure” on weekends due to restricting access to the park, and therefore driving up entry prices.

There are, thankfully, good precedents for safaris and ecotourism that support animal welfare. Many safari operators in Africa, as well as government regulators, support anti-poaching efforts, wildlife management and care, and land protection – arguably the most crucial effort since it protects habitat and inhibits animal-human conflict through controlling development. Finding the right balance for Sri Lanka will be essential as its tourism infrastructure continues to develop, and political leadership will be key.

Two weeks later, I keep thinking back to the baby elephant that captured my attention while out in the field. I’m filled with grateful to have had the experience of watching her. I have siblings too – seven of them. I’m the oldest, and they climbed all over me as kids. I too would shake them off, mildly annoyed at times but always somewhat tickled. For me, the safari was an exercise in recalling my sense of empathy – it was an experience that reminded me of our impact and the reality of our choices as a species. I’m hopeful for all of our futures that we can find a balanced way to share this planet. For that to happen, we have to take greater steps to reign in our development in sensitive habitat areas and address climate change in every way we can.

[i] IUCN lists Toque Macaques as endangered due to these factors. See http://www.iucnredlist.org/det...

[ii] https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downl...

[iii] Santiapillai, C., Fernando, P., Gunewardene, M. (2006) A strategy for the conservation of the Asian elephant in Sri Lanka. Gajah: Journal of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group. Number 25: 91–102.

[iv] http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/...

[v] "The World Factbook." Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 23 March 2018.

[vi] https://www.theguardian.com/wo...